Diamond Bank grosses N103b in six months

Diamond Bank Plc grew its top-line by N6.2 billion in the first half to N103 billion as the commercial bank continued to broaden its retail and corporate banking businesses.

Key extracts of the interim report and accounts for the six-month ended June 30, 2015 released at the weekend showed that gross earnings rose by six per cent to N103 billion by June 2015 compared with N96.8 billion recorded in comparable period of 2014.

Commenting on the first-half performance, chief executive officer, Diamond Bank Plc, Mr. Uzoma Dozie, said that the bank’s continued success in spite of regulatory headwinds underlined management’s strategies that promote sustainable growth and profitability in the long term.

“Our innovative, customer friendly services, and retail banking strategy are showing positive results and will enable us to sustain low cost of funds. In the quarters ahead, we will focus on driving non-interest income, as we continue to explore opportunities to grow our market share responsibly. We shall expand customer relationships, enhanced by our elaborate channels and excellent service delivery,” Dozie said.

However, further review indicated contraction in the bottom-line, but the bank’s capital adequacy ratio rose to 18.6 per cent, substantially higher than Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s minimum level. Profit before tax had declined from N16.07 billion to N14.19 billion while profit after tax slipped from N13.79 billion to N12.15 billion.

Dozie said the group continues to deploy new technologies and digital applications to drive financial inclusion and convenient banking amidst a decline in the pace of economic activities and weak economic fundamentals.

He noted that although loans to customers increased by N2.6 billion, customer deposits, however, declined from N1.5 trillion to N1.4 trillion, reflecting the impact of the bank’s deliberate decision to improve the efficiency of its funding structure, and effect of implementation of Treasury Single Account (TSA) by the Federal Government and the CBN.

He outlined that the bank’s focus remains on retail banking and providing convenient and easy banking to the micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSME) segment adding that it has also continued to grow its corporate and mid-tier business segments.

“The concept of value chain management helps us to provide end-to-end solution to the distributors of our corporate clients and ultimately improve value for both us and the customers,” Dozie said.